Scenes from a sketchbook

I have just given my two year old grandson his first easel and he loves it. He can't stop drawing! It has made me realise what a long relationship I have had with drawing and how easy it is to let it all slip.

I was taught drawing by a traditional teacher who set us up with shells and milk bottles and told us about dark and shade and the existence of ellipses.  My real love though has always been people so of course I have drawn myself countless times - pretty depressing as you get older, and any one else who lingers long enough in my life in a still position...which isn't many when I come to think of it. Life classes have been interesting though it is years since I went to one. I have been on both sides of this having modelled one season myself - it certainly gives you an insight. I once fainted trying to maintain a standing pose on a table top which was embarrassing to say the least. Why I didn't say that it was going black I don't know.

I always have good intentions. I take a sketch book on every holiday and usually end up sketching at the airport or round the pool - surreptitiously of course, like this man with sound excluding headphones this year:

sunbed man

twinkly eye

female head

What I really like are older faces with a bit of character like this twinkly eyed man - well I only got one eye sorted but you get the idea. What I like about it is that I can disappear into a drawing. Time is of no consequence. Of course I have a cupboard of special crayons, conte pencils, charcoal, wonderful paper that I dare not use - the usual, and I am always meaning to take it up properly instead of doing the odd sketch and then getting distracted. Still at least I have some sketches of family members to look back on and one day perhaps I will actually take it up again.